Thursday Morning Links, Featuring DeMarcus Cousins & Tim Duncan

Sacramento Bee: As the Spurs beat the Kings by five, DeMarcus Cousins struggled. He scored 25 points and grabbed 11 rebounds, but he needed 24 shots to get there and committed 5 turnovers along the way. Tim Duncan, on the other hand, posted 18 points on 8-11, and spent about 20 minutes of the game resting on the bench. Overwhelmed by the ease with which Timmy operates, Cousins reportedly gushed to Duncan, “[four-letter word], you’re good!”

Youtube: Also in that Kings/Spurs game, 60th-overall pick Isaiah Thomas (who has an extra “A” in his name… something I realized just yesterday) scored a career-high 28 points and made it a double-double by adding 10 assists (shout out to Donte Greene, who nailed the big J at the buzzer to round out his buddy’s line). I find it funny that complete highlights of Jimmer Fredette’s five-point performance can be found on Youtube, but no one bothered to put together a compilation of Thomas’s career night. How does a 5’9″ 60th pick not have a superfan?

Grantland: Sometimes I feel like we have a tendency to forget that NBA players are people, especially when discussing trade scenarios. We, as basketball fans, only concern ourselves with the on-court impact of proposed deals. For the players involved, there’s obviously a lot more to it. Being traded may mean moving an entire family cross-country, or even ending up stranded in a new city without any swag. Here’s a little article full of interesting quotes from Nene, Nick Young, Richard Jefferson, Brian Cook, and Luke Walton regarding what it’s like to be traded. Can you guess which player’s biggest concern was his swag?

Hoopsgrind:Observations from Wednesday night’s games. It should be noted that Gerald Green’s 14 points came on 6-10 with one of the misses being a contested alley-oop dunk attempt that would’ve brought the house down. Your house. Like, if you were actually watching the Nets, and you saw this Gerald Green dunk get completed on your TV, your house would’ve collapsed.

Yahoo!: Take note of Greg Stiemsma’s one point. He didn’t attempt a single shot, yet I’d argue that his play had a bigger impact on the game than that of anyone else during the 19 minutes and 26 seconds that he played. I don’t know how the f@ck he wound up recording a -4. Either I don’t know jack sh!t about basketball or that statistic is flawed. Just eight minutes into his first stint, Stiemsma had already blocked 3 shots, grabbed 2 rebounds, come up with a steal, and taken a charge. Utah was attacking the basket and crashing the boards, but their valiant efforts resulted in little success due to Stiemsma’s protection of the paint. There’s no goddamn way Utah shoots a lousy 39% from the floor in this game if Greg Stiemsma doesn’t play.

Ball Don’t Lie: Don Nelson, the mad scientist behind my favorite basketball experiment of all-time, has been selected for the Hall Of Fame. As the article points out, Nelson was one of the game’s greatest innovators. Gregg Popovich may win all the titles, but I don’t see him playing Stephen Jackson at all five positions.

Basketbawful: The worst of Tuesday night. On Lamar Odom: “Yes, it was very nice that Odom didn’t completely crap the bed, but all the comments about his “breakout” 9-point, 4-rebound performance feels a little….excessive. His coach called it a “great step in the right direction”. Sure, you might want to cheer for kids at the Special Olympics like that, but is Odom’s ego so fragile that you need to fluff him for a triple-single performance? (wait, don’t answer that).”

Youtube: Rajon Rondo continues to do some of the most unorthodox things you’ll ever seen done with a basketball. Here he is making a back-bending, ball-cuffing fake before collaborating with Brandon Bass on an easy score. What Rondo did prior to that pass actually looked more like a dance move than it did a basketball maneuver.